Archive for the ‘Sean Penn’ Category

When Benn and I were doing podcasts and the actress love of his life would show up in a review, Nicole Kidman, my review would be something along the lines of, blah blah miscast, blah blah blah bad movie. Now since this was, and as far as I know still is, the number one actress on his list of favorite hot actresses, this brought him some distress that he usually wrote off by saying, “Brian is just an asshole.” But since I have lost February’s movie review challenge to him, my punishment is to write an essay, which is this, as to why I think Nicole Kidman is miscast in all of these movies. So when I embarked on re-watching these movies to see why she was miscast, I discovered that with one exception, I really wasn’t a fan of the movie she was in and therefore reflected negatively on her. So this isn’t exactly what Benn wants but this is the best I can come up with. So here is a list of movies where I think she is miscast in because in general, they aren’t that good.

The Peacemaker (1997) – I am going to start off with the movie I liked that she was in that she may not have fit in. While I think she gave a fine performance alongside the not yet insufferable 90’s version of George Clooney, I just don’t see her in an action movie. Physically while she is beautiful, she doesn’t have the body type that goes well with female action heroes or actors in general. She is too thin and she isn’t athletic. Compare her to an Angelina Jole in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and even Gal Gadot in the new Batman v Superman movie. This sounds horrible to say but the best comparison is when watching women’s basketball, the ladies are good and can do some nice things, but they are very mechanical in their approach to the game. Compared to the men, there is no fluidity to how they dribble, shoot, or run. There is nothing wrong with it, but compared to the men’s game, the women’s can be hard to watch. This is Nicole Kidman in an action movie because she is too mechanical in her actions. Now they don’t give her a gun to use and shoot which is a good thing, but she just looks a little out of place. Still a nice job and movie but just doesn’t work.

Batman Forever (1995) – This one is more about the movie than it is her. Her character, Dr. Chase Meridian, who is the love interest to Bruce Wayne, is written to be the dumbest smart person in a movie I have seen in a while. Ignoring Bruce Wayne because she loves Batman only to dis Batman because she is falling for Bruce Wayne even though a.) They are the same person and b.) At no point did Bruce Wayne as himself or as Batman do anything wrong to instigate her change in opinion of him. Plus she had the look like she was mailing it in, but in her defense, everyone was in this movie. This movie was the beginning of the end of the first reincarnation of the Batman franchise, thank you Joel Shumacher, and while I am sure she was paid handsomely for the film, it wasn’t enough. To me it felt like she didn’t care, and the way it was written, she probably shouldn’t have either. My review is here.

The Interpreter (2005) – In her defense in this film, this movie is way, way, way, too slow and equally as too long. But the biggest reason why I don’t think she fit in this film was that her character was supposed to be hiding her big secret yet at no time did you watch her in this film and not think she is hiding something. Now the story goes out of its way to point out she is hiding something but even before that happens you can tell she is hiding something. Plus this movie made the mistake that The Peacemaker did not do which is put a gun in her hand, twice, and expect me to believe she looked natural in it. She is supposed to be an ex rebel fighter who gave up the violence for a chance to make peace happen at the UN. There is a picture of her holding an automatic weapon, I think an AK-47. Just no. At no time does she look like she could be a rebel in a jungle shooting a rifle. The final scene where she has a gun pointed at the head of the President of the made up African country just doesn’t work either, I was half convinced she was going to accidentally shoot herself. All this being said all of the issues with her in this film are more due to the movie itself as opposed to her. I have a review of the film you can see here.

Bewitched (2005) – This movie is easy for me because it sucked and she had zero chemistry with Will Ferrell. I can’t remember ever seeing her in a comedy and this one is so unfunny that it can’t be called one either. But I just remember watching this and thinking that have an actress known for being quite good on the dramatic side had no business being in this supposed funny film with a comedic actor. Her timing was off and it just never worked. Again this is a horrible film so it’s not all on her, but I just don’t see her as a comedic actress. My review is here.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – The only reason I can think she is in this film is because the script called for Tom Cruise to have sexual contact with the actress who is portraying his wife and because he is a nut job believer in Scientology I thought that maybe he couldn’t touch another woman sexually, even if its fake acting, so he had Nicole, who was his wife back then, to take the roll in the film. Maybe it was Nicole telling him he wasn’t going to touch another woman’s breast on film for the world to see. Either way she has a small part in a film that uses what she says as the catalyst for all of Tom Cruises characters conflicts, but Nicole is wasted on this film. Plus, and here is what really annoys me, she is a hot, attractive woman, yet Stanly Kubrick does Kubrick things and the opening scene we have a near naked Nicole sitting on the toilet, peeing. And not only do we get see her on the toilet, but we get to see her wiping herself. Now I get that this is a body function and it shouldn’t bother me and if I was married to her I wouldn’t be, but for this scene Kubrick basically says to all the males wanting to see Nicole as a sexual object, “Oh you think she is hot, will here watch this and fuck you!” For all of you ladies out there, imagine Johnny Depp sitting naked on the toilet taking a dump and then grabbing a big wad of toilet paper and wiping himself. Yeah its natural and its good to know he is using TP but still, do you really want to see it? So in a few minutes when we see her topless and about to start doing Tom, I was like, eh…who cares. And I am kind of pissed that I was robbed of that. Hope you burned a little for that one Kubrick

Well that’s the reasons why I think Nicole was miscast in some movies. I believe she is a great actress and sure she has great films but I just haven’t seen them. If Benn didn’t have a thing for red heads this would have been easier though.

So after the first hour of the movie I kept asking myself why Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn are in this suspenseful, detective, who done it. However, 15 hours later when the movie FINALLY ended, I realized that this movie was a political drama and both Kidman and Penn were perfect for this yawner.

Ok, Nicole Kidman (Batman Forever) stars as Silvia, an interpreter at the United Nations who overhears a conversation between two people talking about the assassination of an African President who is accused of genocide. Tobin Keller, played by Sean Penn (21 Grams), is a Secret Service agent assigned to protect foreign dignitaries, and gets to investigate Silvia. Blah, blah, blah! The plot and outline description can go on for another four hours, but I don’t want to torture myself again, so I will just get to the complaints.

All of the trailers show Sean Penn’s character basically saying he thinks Kidman’s character is lying to him. Well, if there was a twist and maybe she was telling the truth but it was hard to prove, that would be worth investigating, but she was lying from the beginning and everybody in the audience new it or should have known it. There was no suspense to Kidman’s character, you knew she was hiding something all of the time. Now, there was suspense when you were trying to figure out what lie she was going to tell Keller. But the movie took way to long to figure out the obvious.

Nicole Kidman was poorly cast for this movie. It’s not her fault since supposedly she did not read the script before signing on. Her character kills a small kid years before the time that this movie takes place, Kidman can’t pull that kind of character off. There was picture of her holding a gun and it just was wrong, and then the final scene with her holding the gun to the bad guys head, um, no. She is a great actress and wonderfully beautiful, but some other actress should have been cast, not Kidman.

I thought Sean Penn did a good job, but I couldn’t figure out why he was in this movie after the first hour. He doesn’t do action movies, at least not now. But once the movie switched to the whole politics is best served by talking and not the gun, then it made perfect since why he was in this movie. This was his subtle anti-Iraqi war movie statement. He did a good job but if I knew what this movie was REALLY about, I would have gone in with a completely different mind set.

I would also like to bitch about Sydney Pollack and his directing. Every scene seemed to last 5 minutes longer than necessary. It was like he was making a statement, putting it in bold, and italics, and then underlines it. I know the writing has something to do with it but still a director should know when to edit out the pointless staring that the characters do. Ten seconds of staring is ok, what seemed like 45 years of staring in the same scene, too much.

Overall, I can’t recommend this movie, it is painfully long, Kidman is miscast, and it is not a suspenseful thriller but a political drama. So if you like long-winded political statements in a movie, have fun, and bring your hemorrhoid crème.